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Tuesday, 5 June 2012

“BROTHER” CHARLES GOES TO JAIL

Erudite poet and
professor of English JP Clark penned a beautiful poem which he titled “The
Reason why” and this poetic acclamations immediately came to my
consciousness on hearing that former Liberian Warlord Mr. Charles Ghankey
Taylor has just been sentenced by the international criminal court (ICC) to
half a century (50 years) behind the formidably fortified prison walls of the
United Kingdom. Professor Clark’s poem goes thus; “My father took the tough
line with the first set of children, who happened all to be boys, so they would
grow to become the brothers he did not have in a big, divided house to which he
was heir, just as his father fought him always in public to save him from the
gates, belching fire around”.

Similarly, at the
heat of the fratricidal war-fare in Liberia and the neighboring Republic of
Sierra Leone, notable black Africans from all across the globe including
political scholars and civil society leaders like Jesse Jackson, Professors
Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, among several other distinguished African personalities
pleaded profusely with the then war-time president of Liberia Mr. Charles
Taylor to take comprehensive steps to end the needless bloody battle that was
consuming the precious lives of hundreds of thousands of African lives, but he
never heeded to these wise counsels but instead activated ferocious political
mechanism to retain political power by all means and exported his brand of mass
murder and “talent for disorder” to the neighboring Sierra Leone.

Regrettably, the
version of war that took place in Sierra Leone was unprecedented in terms of
the scale of brutality and physical maiming of several lives; forced amputation
of limbs and coordinated annihilation of the civil populace by the armed rebels
of the Revolutionary United Front [RUF] who were said to have enjoyed the
backing of Charles Taylor who was also facing internal revolts.

With Taylor’s
sentencing to a whooping 5o years in jail on May 30th 2012, can we say without
a shadow of doubt that the chicken has come home to roost? Will other African
dictators such as the tyrants in Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, Congo Kinshasha and
Sudan learn a lesson or two from this tough existential experience of one of
their former comrade -in –crime; former President Charles Taylor?

Another salient
dimension of the sentencing by the international crimes court [ICC] in The
Hague, Netherland, of former Liberian President Charles Taylor to begin his
prison odyssey for the next fifty years is whether this is the much needed
tonic for the civil populace in the Sub-Saharan Africa to emulate their
compatriots from North Africa and stage popular mass actions targeted at
actually and pragmatically transforming their political and economic fortunes
that have in the last fifty years been systematically messed up by the ruling
political elites in countries such as Nigeria, Sudan, Angola, Equatorial
Guinea, Gabon among others?

In a special
publication introduced in December 2011 by The Economist titled; “The World in
2012”, the writers predicted that in 2012, people of Sub-Saharan Africa may
witness their unique brand of spring similar to the Arab spring that brought
radical changes in places like Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Morocco.

Writing under the
captivating and catchy caption of “A Sub-Saharan Spring,?” The Economist had
stated thus; “The successful uprisings of 2011 in North Africa were closely
watched farther south on the continent. They have already spawned some local
protest movements – as in Burkina Faso – and are inspiring talk of more.
Authoritarian rulers in sub-Sahara Africa can expect a year of growing
opposition and attempts to dethrone them. The dynamics are likely to be
somewhat different from those on the Mediterranean shore, where protesters were
richer and better informed”.

The authors of the
well articulated piece further affirmed that; “As in north Africa, mobile
communication and social media are popular on the rest of the continent, and
not just in rich enclaves. More than 1m Nigerians have a BlackBerry. Africa as
a whole has more mobile phones than America. This means that traditional
impediments to political organization for opposition groups are weakening. And
there is no shortage of things to protest about. Jobs are rare and food prices
are rising. The cost of staples has grown by multiples thanks to high demand
and a rise in the cost of fuel needed to produce and transport them. Africans
have been beneficiaries of the resource boom too, earning fees from oil and
minerals. But the benefits go primarily to the powerful.”

It is therefore not
out of place to expect that the sentencing of one of Africa’s best known
dictators for crimes against humanity may give further impetus to the millions
of energetic, resourceful but increasingly economically impoverished Sub
–Saharan African youths to probe into practical ways and means of erecting and
enthroning a better society for themselves and future generations unborn.

Charles Taylor who
I prefer to call ‘Brother’ Charles was sentenced by a panel of international
Jurists led by Justice Richard Lussick.

According to a live
broadcast of the reading of the Charles Taylor verdict at the international
criminal Court covered by the British Broadcast Corporation, the international
crimes court convicted him on all the eleven counts.

The judge said that
the prosecution has proved on various counts that the RUF rebels were
responsible for killings, rapes and mutilations committed during the conflict
in Sierra Leone.

The judge noted that
prior to the indictment period, the RUF leader Foday Sankoh and Charles Taylor
had met when they trained in Libya, but said the two worked independently of
each other and added that the evidence shows that Charles Taylor advised on a
RUF plan to recapture a diamond area in Sierra Leone in 1998 but there was no
sufficient evidence to show he was aware of the conduct of the operation, named
"No living thing".

Specifically, the
charges against Charles Taylor are "Taylor was convicted on Count 1 for
acts of terrorism (a war crime), on Count 2 for murder (a crime against
humanity), on Count 3 for murder (a war crime), on Count 4 for rape (a crime
against humanity), on Count 5 for sexual slavery (a crime against humanity), on
Count 6 for outrages upon personal dignity (a war crime), on Count 7 for cruel
treatment (a war crime), on Count 8 for inhumane acts, including mutilations
and amputations, (a crime against humanity), on Count 9 for the recruitment,
enlistment and use of child soldiers, on Count 10 for enslavement (a crime
against humanity), and on Count 11 for pillage (a war crime)."

The Judge said that
Charles Taylor committed some of the most heinous war crimes in human history
and therefore should spend the next fifty years in Jail. He is expected to
spend this Jail term in British maximum security prison.

Even as some
persons have questioned the credibility of the international criminal court
(ICC) following the failure of the global crimes panel to bring other
non-African political leaders indicted for war crime to effective justice, for
Africans, the sentencing of Charles Taylor is indeed symbolic in the collective
quest to end the vicious circle of dictatorship and bloody autocratic regimes
on the black continent.

In his book
“civilian Dictators of Africa”, Shehu Sani noted that Africans need to end the
vestiges of tyranny all across Africa if our black continent will ever
hold any hope of becoming developed, peaceful and economically viable for
Africans and other global citizens to live and do legitimate activities without
fear or favour.

I believe that
Africans deserve a peaceful continent so as to stop the ongoing illegal
migration to parts of Europe, Israel and Arab nations whereby they are exposed
to hazards of survival in unfriendly foreign lands.

On the unfortunate
presence of political dictators in Africa, Mr.Shehu Sani wrote thus; “In much
the same manner as the past leadership of its constituent polities, Africa
today is still characterized by dictatorships (civilian or military), who have
behaved despotically, governed poorly, initiated or exacerbated existing civil
conflicts, murdered or eliminated opponents, decelerated per capita economic
growth and have engendered and promoted corruption. And while there seems to be
no end to the emergence of new dictators in Africa, there exists no strong
institutional mechanism to prevent the emergence and the consolidation of
dictatorship in governance in Africa”.

HURIWA'S WORKING VISIT TO ICPC ON THE 27TH MARCH 2013

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS' ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA; HURIWA, ON DECEMBER 12TH 2012 VISITED THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY[NEMA] ALHAJI MOHAMMAD SANI-SIDI ON THE CELEBRATION OF WORLD HUMAN RIGHTS DAY TO CONFER ON HIM THE HUMAN RIGHTS PERSON OF THE YEAR 2012 BY THE ORGANIZATION. THE DG PROMISED TO TAKE DISASTER MANAGEMENT LESSONS TO ALL PARTS OF NIGERIA. HURIWA WAS LED BY ITS NATIONAL COORDINATOR COMRADE EMMANUEL ONWUBIKO.